Along Came the Rain
by CeCe Away
Summary: "He put—" Fresh tears spilled. "He put some—something inside me. Dean, please, Dean, get it out." One-shot boys-are-in-for-a-shock-hurt-worry-comfort-while-fighting-a-monster-type-of-random-fic Sam, Dean, Cas, MOTW


This is a request from Promise777. Actually she came up with the entire premise and plot. I just got to run with it. She's uber-creative. All mistakes are my own and however far-fetched any of these medical conditions are, and they are far-fetched, just pretend I know what I'm talking about. I don't, but that's the beauty of being able to suspend disbelief.

This takes place somewhere in early Season Five.

**Along Came the Rain**

Rain pounded the roof. Or was that the shower?

_Man, Sammy_. Dean blinked his eyes open, gritty with fatigue and instantly stilled, hunter instincts screaming to the surface.

What the hell?

This was definitely not their motel room. Come to think of it, he didn't remember going back to the motel.

Thunder boomed outside. Okay. Dean reached behind his back for his gun, taking in the papers strewn across dirty tile, an empty nurses station, faded OR 2 painted above wide double doors, a row of plastic chairs along the wall—one he currently occupied—and swore under his breath when the search for his weapon came up empty.

Rain pelted the windows behind the nurses station, rattling the rhythm of Dean's rising pulse.

He knew where he was. It was the next stop on their weird and wacky tour of the macabre. Saint Lebewiesen's Hospital of Good Hope, permanently closed in the late sixties when the newer state-of-the-art facility was built across town.

Dean didn't think it had anything to do with the case, but Sam was insistent they at least check it out.

Sam.

Dean's eyes shot to the double doors of the OR, his senses picking up on exactly where his brother was. He launched to his feet, all caution in hostile surroundings inconsequential to the little brother bat-signal punching a hole in his gut. He slammed through those doors and his heart crashed to a splintering stop.

His brother lay on an old operating table, one of those rolling carts pushed up beside it with bloody rags, bloody scissors, discarded surgical gloves, and big-ass syringe on it.

A hot blinding pressure squeezed Dean's temples, hard enough to burst. He flew to that table, shoving the cart out of the way.

It was worse up close.

Sam's arms were strapped down at his sides, his bare chest heaving in rapid pants. Another strap was cinched over his thighs to keep him in place. One of those doctor caps had been placed on his head, as well as one of those flimsy masks over his mouth and nose.

Worse, blood ran down his chest and side, dribbling into the filthy stained mattress from a long cut just above his heart that had been stitched together with thick black thread. He could only imagine the size of the needle needed for that size of thread.

Sam's eyes were open, frightened and pleading. Tear tracks laid a wet trail from the corners of his eyes down the side of his face and Dean saw red.

Whoever cut and sewed Sam up did it while the kid was awake.

Dean choked down his rising bile and pulled the mask down Sam's chin. Anger flared anew at the bandana gagging him, hidden beneath the doctor's mask.

"Hey, easy, easy." Loosening it, he pulled the dirty cloth down to Sam's neck as well.

"Get—get it out," Sam panted, pulling against the restraints. "Get it out." His voice was dry, raspy and heading into full-blown panic.

Everything inside of Dean froze. "Sam?"

"He put—" Fresh tears spilled. "He put some—something inside me. Dean, please, Dean, get it out."

"All right, I will, but you got to calm down." He started unbuckling Sam's closest wrist. "Okay, you with me?"

The moment his wrist was free, Sam flung his hand up, lightning quick.

Dean caught it before he could gouge into the wound. "Sam!" He was going to cause more damage. "Sam, get it under control, man."

Sam pulled against him, his other hand fighting the restraint.

Dean leaned over, getting right into Sam's face, trapping both their arms between them. "Sam. I. Will. Get. It. I'll get it. I promise you."

Sam's heartbeat banged rapidly beneath the back of Dean's hand. Blood and the rough black thread tickled his knuckles.

But he kept his hold on Sam's arm and his eyes sharp into Sam's, waiting him out.

He felt the moment Sam was with him. Long fingers quit fighting, latching onto Dean's instead like a life ring. Glassy eyes latched onto his, held.

Easing up, he straightened Sam's arm, felt him clasp onto the hem of his jacket.

"I'm going to check it. Hang tight."

Sam nodded, his neck straining.

Dean ran light fingers around the stitches, no longer black now, but red with blood. Sam flinched when he pressed in. Dammit. Something was definitely in there. Hard, flat, the size and shape of a domino.

Sam's breathing picked up again. Chest rising and falling hard.

Dean pressed down on his shoulder, holding him in place and searched his pocket for his knife. Gone. Keys and cell too. Dammit to hell.

He glanced at the bloodied scissors on the cart, not thrilled about using those dirty things on Sam, even knowing that was his brother's blood already coating them, but Sam's gaze was pleading. The wound was fresh, not anywhere closed, easy to cut the stitches, spread apart and dig out whatever was in there.

"You get a look at him?" He asked more to distract Sammy than anything. Details could come later because if it was the last thing he did, he was going to rip the spine out of this thing. _It cut Sam open while he was awake. _

Sam nodded, his throat working. "Not a…" His voice cracked, parchment thin. "Not a ghost…like we thought."

"Not Doc Goatface?" He cleaned the scissor blades as best he could on the inside of his overshirt.

Sam's gaze locked onto them. "Doctor's brother." His fingers curled tighter into Dean's jacket.

Dean frowned. "Doc Waverly's brother isn't dead. Not a ghost." _Not yet._ He cut through the first stitch, then the second. The raw edges of the wound sloughed apart. So the old goat faced physician wasn't their monster. The next stitch was tighter. He pushed the tip of the scissors beneath the thread, scraping something hard and Sam lurched up, gasping.

Then fell back. Every joint in Sam's body stiffened, shaking like he got hit with a jolt of electricity. Veins bulged along his stretched neck as he arched off the table, shoulders and head grinding into the mattress, his jaw so tight there was a real danger of breaking teeth or biting through his tongue. Dean dropped the scissors and dove onto Sam, pinning him from falling off the table with his own upper body. Sam's legs kicked the air, arms flailed, one wrist buckled down. Thunder bellowed around them.

Finally it receded—whatever _it_ was—and Sam's muscles went slack. His chest rose and fell raggedly, his heart crazy rapid beneath Dean's palm. Dean lifted off, giving his brother the once over. Pallor graying, eyes wide and frightened, bracketed in lines of pain. Pupils blown.

Dean cupped his palms around Sam's clammy face and looked into his eyes. "You're okay."

It was a damned lie and they both knew it, but Sam latched onto it and gave his own lie back. "Okay," he shuddered out on a gasp.

Dean smiled for him and patted his cheek before letting his hands slide away to work at that last buckle holding Sam's wrist. "Let's get out of here." He hauled Sam up, guiding the long legs to hang over the side. "Okay?"

Sam nodded, head drooping and bangs obscuring his eyes, while his freed hand pushed on his chest. "I just need to—"

"Sam, no—" Too late.

Sam spasmed, his body locking up hard, eyes rolled back and he flopped off the table, Dean going with him, trying his best to cushion the back of Sam's head. _C'mon, kid_, he gritted, while Sam thrashed and flailed on the dirty floor, bringing horrible strained gasps from deep in his throat. More blood bubbled up from the wound.

All Dean could do was hold on and ride it out with him.

Finally, the tremors subsided and Sam lay in Dean's arms, a sweaty shivering panting mess.

"Don't—" Dean's voice cracked, scraped tight by the closing muscles of his throat. "Don't touch it again."

Sam blinked miserably up at him.

Sharp laughter gritted across the air like shards of glass digging into Dean's senses.

"He's in here with us." Leaning over Sam, Dean picked up the scissors he'd dropped.

He got to his knees, pulling Sam up with him. "We're out of here. Now."

"But Waverly's brother?"

"Oh, don't worry. I'm coming back for him."

"But—"

"No, Sam. Priority one: Get you out of here and that . . . whatever it is . . . out of you." He hauled Sam up to his feet.

Sam clenched his jaw, breathing through it. "Okay, agreed, but—"

"But nothing." He pulled Sam's arm across his shoulder. "You don't think I can handle him on my own?"

"He already got the drop on both of us once."

Which unsettled Dean to no end. "Ain't happening again. To nobody."

Sam nodded at that.

He guided Sam out of the OR, kicking the swinging double doors open, relieved to at least get his brother out of that room. His gaze tracked down both darkened hallways, looking for either the sonvuabitch that nabbed them or more importantly, a way out. Heavy rain pelted the windows like pebbles. Swaying branches slapped at the panes.

Dean took the hall to the right. Though his head bobbed with each step, Sam kept pace, his chest expanding in sharp inhalations. Around a corner, a long row of glass doors ran the length of the small hospital's entrance, handles chained and padlocked. Dead plants in tall pots stood on either side.

He eased Sam down to sit with his back against the wall. "Don't touch that," he warned before going to check out the chains, wishing he had his gun or bolt cutters from the trunk.

Which turned out to be a non-issue since the chain on the last door was already broken. Must be how their new sociopathic friend brought them in.

Grinning that something was finally going their way, Dean pushed the door—

Sonuvabitch. It wouldn't budge. He shook it, shoved against it, kicked it, tried the other doors. Grabbing one of the pots, he smashed it against the glass. The pot cracked, dirt spilled across the floor, but the door remained intact. He threw the second pot into the windows. The pot shattered.

"Dammit. You sure this wasn't a ghost, Sammy?"

Sam winced up at him. "Supernatural lockdown?"

"Tight as a virgin's legs."

Sam pressed his hand on his collarbone, a little too close to the black stitches. "Wasn't a ghost."

"Demon?"

"Don't you think I tried exorcising—"

"You were gagged." Oh, right. Sam's psychic mojo crap didn't need any incantations. Dean tamped down the anger that arose any time he thought of his brother's extracurriculars.

Sam watched him with hooded knowing eyes, braced for recriminations.

Dean sighed, scrubbing his palm over his jaw and crouched beside his brother. Focus on the task at hand. Priority one so far was a bust.

"Okay, what do we know?" He ticked off one finger. "Not a ghost." He ticked off the middle finger. "Psycho drags people off, operates on them, then when he's done playing, dumps the corpses out in the woods." Which is why they thought it was the ghost of crazy Doc Waverly. He'd been known to go experimental on his patients while alive, lost his medical practice over it and then committed suicide. And since the Doc practiced at the newer facility across town they'd focused the hunt there.

Dean ticked off his ring finger. "Our culprit is the Doc's brother, janitor of this highly esteemed facility. So what's a janitor doing playing doctor?"

"Getting back at his brother." Sam slumped sideways into Dean's shoulder.

"You know this how?"

"Told me."

"'Course he did." _Bastard_.

"Waverly was always putting Floyd down."

"Brother's name is Floyd?"

Sam nodded.

"Small wonder he's messed up."

Sam huffed on a grin. "Floyd was never good enough, smart enough, just a janitor…"

"So little brother is set out to prove that his experiments are just as sadistic as big doctor brother's. That's just great." Dean froze, reminded that when he'd found Sam strapped to that OR table, he'd had on a doctor's mask and doctor's hat. "Or _to_ big doctor brother."

Sam's head bobbed, his hair rubbing across Dean's neck. Anger burned a path of red across Dean's vision. He took a long shuttering breath to focus. "So what's with the ghost lockdown? How's he doing it? He has to be harnessing some wicked powerful supernatural crap to do that."

Sam lifted his head and scrunched his forehead in that I-just-thought-of-something way of his. "His neck is scarred."

"Scarred how?" Dean searched his memories, thinking up every evil SOB they'd ever come against with scars.

"Scars. Like he'd barely survived a fire."

"Burn marks." Shit. No. No, no, no, no. "Sam, these scars, were they patterned like spikes on a collar, blackening at the tips?"

Sam squeezed his eyes closed as though remembering something painful. "Yeah."

"Dammit."

"You know what it is?" Sam angled his face toward him, the first ray of hope reflecting in his gaze. "That's good."

"Yeah, I know what it is and no, it is not good. It's the opposite of good."

"Dean?"

"It's an iberra, all right?"

Sam blinked. His forehead wrinkled in little half-loops.

"Oh come on, that giant brain of yours doesn't know what an iberra is?" He wanted Sam to already know on his own. He didn't want to tell him just how effed up they were.

"New plan. Gonna stash you someplace safe. Floyd isn't a ghost so he can't float through walls. We find a closet or something—"

"Dean."

"Barricade you inside—"

"Dean! What the hell is an iberra?"

Dean blew out a breath. "Dad and I hunted one back in Baltimore."

"Kay. And…"

"And they suck, Sammy. They're bad mothers." He pulled the scissors out of his belt, turning them in his palm. "They're like wendigos, man. They start out human…"

"Until going cannibal turns them into monsters." Sam nodded, getting it. "So an iberra is a human who did something so demented they change into a monster?

"Surgically implanting time bombs in people is pretty demented." Dean's fingers slipped into the holes of the scissors, their one weapon that wouldn't do squat against an iberra. "Kill enough people and they become something else."

"Something that harnesses the energy of those he killed. Ghost energy." Sam's teeth worried at his bottom lip. "Hence the supernatural lockdown. So how did you and Dad kill the other one?"

Dean clenched his jaw. The wind howled, whipping branches across the window glass.

Sam hitched himself up higher, hissing against the movement. "You salt and burned all its victims, voided its power, then you could kill it."

Dean frowned, confirming Sam's guess. They couldn't get out, even if they knew where all the bodies were…and Sam had a friggin electrocution devise implanted in him! Dean's own heart ratcheted up.

Sam started to push himself up the wall, legs shaking.

"Sam." Dean shot to his own feet, taking Sam's elbows to steady him. The fact that Sam allowed Dean to maneuver him so easily betrayed just how much being shocked by that damn thing had taken out of him-twice.

Sam inhaled heavily, his arms shaky. "We'll just have to find another way."

Dean shifted in close to Sam, ready to start him walking. Sam held his hand up. "Without stuffing me in a closet. I'm fine."

"You are not fine," Dean growled.

Sam closed his eyes momentarily then opened them again. "Look, my chest feels like roadkill, but I'm still on my feet."

"Barely."

Sam frowned. "We gonna fight each other or gank this thing?"

"Come on." Dean took a step, letting tough guy Sam balance on his own. Stubborn ass. He'd get his brother out of here and on corpse burning duty if they had a way out…which dammit, Dean, use your head. They did have a way out.

"Cas," he prayed. "Castiel, get your feathered self down here." Outside, thunder boomed. For all his bravado, Sam sank back against the wall.

A rush of wind whined past them. "Dean."

Dean spun, suddenly nose to nose with Castiel.

"What do you need?" Cas asked flatly, his gaze drawn over Dean's shoulder. "Sam, you look unwell. What's happened?"

Before Dean could quip at the understatement, Cas moved around him, arm outstretched, and flattened his palm on Sam's chest.

"Wait—"

Both Cas and Sam went down, both spasming on the floor. Dean knocked Cas aside and the angel immediately went still, sprawled across the dirt-splattered tile.

Pulling Sam up against him, Dean waited for the tremors to subside. "Dammit, Cas, ask next time."

Cas flopped onto his stomach, forehead wrinkled. He pushed up to his hands and knees. "What's happened? What is that inside of Sam?"

"Now he asks." Dean rested his palm over Sam's chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat and the last of the tremors roll through him. Sam stared up at him, mouth slack, eyes glazed. Dean squeezed his arm. "Just lay still for a minute." Then to Cas, "Short version: An iberra put something inside of Sam. Anytime we so much as blink at it, it shocks him. So no touching. You got that?"

"I see." Sitting up, Cas adjusted his trench coat. "My vessel did not enjoy electrocution."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Just beam us out of here, Scotty."

Lips pressed in a hard line, Cas leaned forward, placed his hands on both Sam and Dean…and nothing.

"Uh, Cas?"

"I'm blocked."

"They got pills for that."

And he thought angels couldn't bitchface.

"Something's blocking my powers. I'm cut off."

"Meaning, you're as trapped and weaponless as we are," Sam rasped, and Dean took a breath, relieved that Sam was back with them and coherent.

"This iberra must have killed hundreds to attain the power to cut off an angel of the Lord. I don't like this."

"None of us do," Dean muttered. What now? Priority one still stood. He was getting Sam out of this. Just had a little iberra ganking to take care of first. "We find the bastard. Come up with a way to kill it."

"The bastard with the mojo of hundreds of spirits," Sam deadpanned.

Dean's anger flared. "Got a better idea. I'm all ears."

Both Cas and Sam looked away, then Sam stiffened. "Um, Dean, I know where he is." Sam's voice was strangled, his eyes hard. Dean followed his gaze down the hallway where crazy Floyd Waverly stood watching them, wearing his dead brother's lab coat and a feral smile that lifted the tiny hairs at the back of Dean's spine.

So this is the bastard that cut into Sam. A terrible rage filled him. Dean twisted, flung the scissors. They slammed point first into Waverly's stomach.

He shrieked and fled down the hall.

"Good shot," Cas said while Dean ran after Waverly, bellowing for Cas to stay with Sam.

Papers flew in the air. The chairs started rattling, sliding across the floor. File cabinets behind the nurses station crashed over, old plaques fell from the walls, a hundred trapped ghosts unleashed through Waverly's emotions.

Dean skidded around the corner and slammed through the OR doors.

Waverly spun, flinging his elbow over his head in defense, the end of the scissors bobbing at his abdomen. Even with all the power he had and what he'd become, the man, iberra, whatever, was a coward.

"Not so brave when we're not drugged!" Dean ran at him, not exactly sure what he was going to do and Janitor Bob shrieked, throwing out his arms, a purely defensive move, yet it harnessed everything he had in a good ol' fear-induced adrenaline storm hopped up on ghost channeling.

Dean sailed back, ripped off his feet and smacked into the wall and bounced to the floor. Holy shit. Dude packed a punch.

Waverly stared, eyes wide as though he just now realized the amount of energy he controlled. He straightened, all traces of cowardice sliding off his features, morphing into something predatory.

Perfect. Dean pushed up to his feet. Mord-sith didn't know what he had in him until now. Just his lucky day.

Staring at him across the OR, Waverly slowly pulled the scissors from his own gut, emitting squeaky sucking noises and leaving gruesome holes. No blood. The iberra looked down at the scissors in his pale hand and then back at Dean. His lips thinned into a vicious smile.

"Oh shit."

The scissors floated off Waverly's palm and shot forward.

Dean dove to the floor, hearing the blades whine above him and embed in the wall.

The doors slammed open. Cas and Sam rushed inside. The iberra flung his arms toward them. Cas leapt in front of Sam, flinging his own arms out, palms flat. It looked like he held back a cyclone. Cas leaned forward, feet skidding back on the floor. Wind buffeted his coat, it pulled Sam's hair back. The operating table shimmied. The cart rolled into Cas and overturned, spilling surgical implements across the floor.

Cas stood firm, chin tucked forward in concentration. Cas couldn't access his power, but he was still strong as an ox.

Using the angel as a wind-break, Sam's feet slipped on the floor. His face was scrunched, eyes squinted against the wind flow. His chest had to be aching under the stress.

Cas took a step forward and Sam lost his footing, his feet slipping out from under him and crashed to his knees. He clutched at his chest, curling over, head on the floor.

On his hands and knees, Dean pushed against the supernatural storm, inching toward his brother.

Cas took another step forward. And another, nostrils flaring, body thrown forward like a bull. And suddenly broke through. The wind died.

Cas charged ahead, throwing the table out of his path.

Waverly tried a new tactic. Veins purpling, he tossed up his arms and Cas spun through the air.

Waverly flung out his fists, right, left, like an air boxer and Cas rolled, right, left, taking invisible punch after punch.

Horrified, Sam and Dean glanced at each other and then surged up at the same time, tackling Waverly…

Shrieking, Waverly punched out, arm colliding with Sam's bare chest…and a jolt of electricity burned through Dean, throwing him off. From his stomach he snapped his head up. Sam and Waverly were locked together, both jerking and thrashing, caught in a charged livewire.

Roaring, Cas plowed into them, breaking them apart.

Sam dropped like a brick.

Waverly fell to his knees, hair standing on end, skin blotched and smoking, not quite out, but definitely weakened.

One look at Cas advancing on him and Waverly fled, screaming, stumbling out the doors. Cas marched after him.

Dean scrambled to Sam, searching for residual shockwaves.

Sam lay deadly still. Terror sank like a deep root into Dean's soul. His hand shot to Sam's neck.

"Come on, come on." No pulse. No gaddamned pulse. He wasn't breathing either. The shock from that damn devise was finally too much.

Without hesitation, Dean cleared Sam's mouth, bent and gave three breaths. Lifting, he shouted for Cas and pushed on Sam's chest, then back to rescue breathing all while a fervored litany screamed through his head. _Come on, come on, come on. You don't get to do this, not after everything._

A hand curled around his shoulder. "Dean. What's happened?"

Dean jolted in the middle of a breath. Sam's head rolled to the side. "Cas?" The raw scrape of his voice surprised him. "That last shock…it…Sam's not…"

"Sam's heart has stopped."

"I know dammit." Dean went back to compressing on Sam's chest. "Do something!"

Castiel squinted at Sam for a moment, then gently nudged Dean aside. Slowly, Cas pushed his hand all the way through Sam's chest.

Nausea bubbled up Dean's throat. Cas's hand inside his brother sickened him. "You got your angel juice back?"

"No, but I can compress his heart from the inside. Breathe for him, Dean."

He didn't have to be told twice. Leaning down, Dean gave Sam his life-saving breaths.

Minutes passed with no change. The storm raged outside, lightning speared the dark room in short bursts of brightness. They worked on Sam, neither willing to give up. Dean's counts between breaths grew more desperate and choked. "One, two, come on, Sam, breathe, come on."

He bent to blow more air and Sam's eyes snapped open. He gasped, head wrenching back against the floor.

"He's back," Cas informed unnecessarily. "His heart is pumping."

Dean's had stopped cold. He cupped Sam's face in his palms to get the kid to look at him. "Hey, you with us?"

Cas released his hand from Sam's body.

Sam's gaze tracked to Dean. He nodded and then passed out again.

"His heart has stopped again," Cas intoned.

Dean's fingers flew to Sam's neck. "What happened? We just had him."

Cas slipped his hand back inside of Sam. "It appears Sam's heart can't sustain a rhythm without aid."

"What?" Dean checked to make sure Sam still breathed, flinching as Sam came to again, heaving up on a gasp. "Gaaa."

Dean nudged him back down. "Easy, easy."

Sam rolled his head against the floor, features tight and gray with pain. "Nuuuh. Stop."

Cas took him literally. "If I stop, Sam, your heart will cease beating."

Sam's chest rose and fell hard around Cas's wrist. His eyes were wide with terror.

"Not helping, Cas."

The angel's gaze shot to Dean, uncomprehending. "That devise made Sam's heart stop. It will take something just as drastic to jolt it to working on its own."

"Shut up, Cas. Just shut up." Dean cupped his palm behind Sam's neck, and looked into his brother's frightened eyes. "It's going to be okay. You hear me?"

"De…" The raggedness to Sam's voice betrayed the extent of his pain.

"Shh, we'll fix this."

"Take…take it out." Saying that little bit exhausted Sam and he clenched his teeth against the agony.

"Of course." Cas nodded. "I'm going to take the devise out now."

"What?" Dean grabbed the angel's arm. "Removing that ting will shock him."

"Exactly."

Dean's brows furrowed, getting it and hating it. He nodded to Cas and clasped Sam's hand. Sam's throat bobbed, features clenched and scared. It was like looking into heartbreak.

"Do it," Dean ground out.

Sam immediately screamed, thrashing. His eyes rolled back in his head and his limbs flopped up and down, muscles coiled so tight every vein in his body bulged out blue. Between their joined hands, tremors rolled through Dean.

Cas was spasming too, arm locked tight and unmovable, his eyes rolling side-to-side in their sockets.

Kicking out with the sole of his boot, Dean kicked Cas away.

The angel flopped backward, his hand pulling out of Sam, fingers twitching, clenching and unclenching around the little rectangular strip of tiny circuits with two bloody wires dangling.

Sam seized again and then went still.

Dean kicked Cas's hand, knocking the circuit devise away. It rotated, skidding across the floor.

"Sam, Sam!" Dean dove for Sam's chest, palm flat, searching for both a pulse and breathing. Sam's chest lifted and fell. Dean laid his cheek against the bare flesh, listening—waiting.

There.

A tiny flutter, then stronger, already evening out. Dean took the first breath in what seemed like hours that he breathed entirely for himself.

"Cas," he asked over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off Sam. "Cas, you okay?"

There was shifting behind him and finally Cas answered. "I do not want to repeat that."

Dean smiled, relief making his muscles go loose.

Cas crawled over. "Sam?"

"He's okay. I think he's okay."

Cas rested his palm over Sam's wound. "His heart is beating on its own."

Dean nodded, his throat tight. Everything in him felt heavy and old. He looked around the floor, at all the implements scattered when the rolling surgical cart overturned.

Smoothing Sam's hair back, he spoke to Cas. "Stay here with him." Rising, Dean scooped up the surgical gloves Waverly had used while inserting that awful thing in his brother. He pulled them on, grimacing at the blood coating them. Sam's blood.

"What are you doing?" Cas asked, his palm resting on Sam's arm.

Dean shrugged. "Going after the bad guy so we can get out of here. It's what I do."

"Yes, but how are you going to do it? While the iberra is harnessed to its victims, it can't be killed."

With the plastic glove, Dean scooped Waverly's circuit devise off the floor. "Can't it? It seemed to take a pretty nasty hit off of this when Sam ran into him."

Cas's gaze narrowed.

Dean didn't have time for the angel to think it through. "Just stay here with Sam. I mean it, Cas. Do not leave this room." He spun on his heel.

He had an iberra to fry.

Dean stormed down the hall, anger raging as furiously as the winds outside. Floyd Waverly was going down. No way did the bastard get to mess with Sam like that. No way.

He turned the corner and came face-to-face with the mad janitor.

Before he knew what hit him, Dean flew across the foyer, smacking into the glass doors and fell to the floor. Damn things still didn't buckle.

Dean's head snapped up to Waverly's legs just in front of him, walking away.

"Coward," he snarled. "Pathetic good-for-shit excuse for bones."

Waverly stopped, turned.

"You're not a doctor. You don't have it in you. Now your brother…he was a damn fine physician."

Waverly came at him, full on, his ugly mug contorted in rage.

"You're a worthless, junkless, bag of shit. Never amount to—oompph!"

Dean was hauled off the floor, slammed back into the glass doors. Waverly's hands came around his throat, strong enough to break his neck with one twist, but Dean thrust his gloved hand into the iberra's chest, held.

Waverly jolted, shrieked. His body cinched tight, limbs jerking, eyes bulged. His screams rattled inside his throat. Gray slobber spilled from his mouth.

Shouting, Dean held on, pressing the devise in harder and harder. This was for Sam. This was for Sam.

Waverly's arms dropped. He dropped. Dean fell with him, still pushing, still shouting. Thunder bellowed through the hall. Energy built around them, raising gooseflesh across Dean's scalp.

Waverly's skin ripped apart. Light burst out of the seams, ghosts, spirits, hundreds of them, lifted out, shrieking their anger and pain and shooting up into the ceiling, surging down the hallways. Their energy buffeted into Dean.

He shrank back, shielding his head with his arms as spirit after spirit poured past him.

Suddenly all went quiet. Waverly lay still, a shrunken hollow steaming husk of flesh. Dean leaned closer for a better look, nudging Waverly with his boot.

The glass exploded out of the doors. Shattered pieces sprayed the floor. So much for being on lockdown.

It was over.

Lunging up, Dean high-tailed it back to the OR.

Cas's head was lowered, his palm across Sam's forehead. Dean skidded to a stop, heart squeezing. What now?

Sam jerked up on a gasp, eyes wide, kicking Dean back into motion. He slid to Sam's side. "What is it?"

Cas tilted his head. "I assume you took care of the monster. My powers are no longer cut off so I repaired any residue damage to Sam's heart."

Dean swallowed, not wanting to know how extensive the damage had been. "You did?"

Cas nodded. "You seem surprised."

"No." Just touched. He pulled Sam's head up across his thigh and the kid's eyes closed again, scaring Dean.

"Shall I take you to your current motel?"

"No." Damn it was hard to speak around the lump in his throat. "To the Impala." Wherever the hell his baby was. He had no idea when and where Waverly had snatched them from. But there was salt and accelerant in her trunk. They had clean-up to do. "In a minute. Just…give us a minute."

Sam stirred against him, glassy eyes blinking open, tracked about the room and came back to Dean. His lips turned down in a frown. His throat worked, Adam's apple bobbing up and down before he could figure out how to speak. "How…how much did I miss?"

Dean laughed. "Not much. Not much at all. Just your awesome brother once again saving the day."

_Fin_

_Disclaimers: Don't own anything. Seriously, check my , um, don't look in that closet.  
_


End file.
